Aristotle’s Virtue Ethics – How To Make The Right Decisions

What is Right?

When making decisions, how do we know what is right? Aristotle’s virtue ethics can help us answer this problem.

We’re making decisions all day, every day. We always have options, and a freedom to choose whichever ones seem fit. Our actions stem from our choices, based off of what we deem right and wrong, good and bad, beneficial and detrimental.

“Like action creates like disposition.” – Aristotle

Aristotle believed our actions shape who we are; you literally are what you do. Aristotle’s virtue ethics can guide us towards making the best choices and acting nobly.

In making a choice, you’re making a sacrifice. If you do the good thing, you sacrifice doing the harmful thing. You get away with nothing and every decision matters. You’re always picking a poison. But the best thing we can do is to pick the better poison from all the rest.

If you don’t know what the right thing to do is, pick the option that you believe is the best one possible in the given circumstances. All we can do is try our best.

Read more about the search for certainty in our everyday lives at: How ‘The Problems of Philosophy’ Can Improve Your Life.

Life is a Series of Problems

“To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.” – Friedrich Nietzsche

Life is a cannon that consistently fires problems our way. To be alive is to have problems and to be capable of experiencing pain. They say life is suffering for a reason; if one doesn’t know how to bear the responsibilities that life requires, misery and despair is inevitable.

Most people lack moral guidance, clear knowledge of how one should act properly. With the options and freedom of choice that we have in the face of adversity, it’s often hard to know what the right thing to do truly is. This is where virtue ethics can come in to help us.

There are so many factors that influence our decision-making. The things that we aim towards are heavily influenced by societal standards and the opinions of other people. In The Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle talks about the common things that the majority of people are motivated by, such as money, pleasure and status. These are shallow and weak motivators. These things are not the ultimate ends that we should be acting towards in seeking a fulfilling life. Our actions, then, should be aimed towards helping us reach the appropriate ends.

Repeatedly making poor decisions can cause upset, disheartenment, self-limiting beliefs and over-generalizations about yourself. You might always tell yourself that “nothing you do ever works.” This is not because God is betting against you. It’s actually because your actions aren’t getting you where you want to be.

Eudaimonia and Aristotle’s Virtue Ethics

“The happy life is thought to be one of excellence; now an excellent life requires exertion, and does not consist in amusement. If Eudaimonia, or happiness, is activity in accordance with excellence, it is reasonable that it should be in accordance with the highest excellence; and this will be that of the best thing in us.” – Aristotle

For Aristotle, the goal of life was eudaimonia. This can be translated to good living. To live a life of virtue means not to be bound to a set of strict rules. A virtuous life must be broad and applicable to all cases.

The goal is to develop virtuous character traits. A persons disposition can be defined as their internal characteristics or quality of mind. Doing courageous things does not make you an inherently courageous person. Having a disposition that truly wants you to do courageous things, for their own sake, does make you a courageous person. Rules are rigid, but character can adapt. Aristotle’s virtue ethics are a guide that can help us in all situations and contexts.

Aristotle uses the Golden Mean to define virtue as a mean point between excess and deficiency, both being extremes respectively. Virtue is a target that is hard to aim at and easy to miss. Thus, the importance of being flexible and adaptable to any and all circumstances must be highlighted. The right thing to do will always have its extreme and deficient counter-parts.

Eudaimonia is about living a long life of flourishing, not a short one. You cannot only be virtuous when it suits you. A good life consists of being virtuous throughout its entirety. Short-term gratification is an obstacle to this. This is why habits must be implemented in order to rise above short-term hedonic pleasure. We need to pursue something greater and more fulfilling than this.

Read more about how to live a balanced life by finding moderation with Aristotle’s Golden Mean: How To Find Moderation With Aristotle’s Golden Mean

How to Build a Virtuous Character

“Fortitude is the guard and support of the other virtues.” – John Locke

Step 1: Identify the Virtues You Want to Cultivate

If you’ve read Plato’s The Republic, then you’ve come by the Four Cardinal Virtues; wisdom, courage, moderation and justice. If you’re struggling to decide what virtue you’d like to cultivate, one of these four serve as an excellent start. Every virtue stems from one of the four cardinal virtues.

The Four Cardinal Virtues

Wisdom: using reason and knowledge to make judgements.
Courage: doing what is right no matter the risk or consequences.
Moderation: adopting self-restraint, order and control.
Justice: always treating others with respect no matter what their position may be.

Choose a virtue you believe you are lacking in, and pick that one.

Step 2: Start Small with Everyday Decisions

Pick a small habit at first. Being trying to cultivate virtue by focusing on the smaller things you can do daily.

Examples

Wisdom: read one page a day; focus on limiting one social media app on your phone to gain more time elsewhere; apply one new idea to your life consistently for a week.
Courage: tell the truth and see what happens; learn to say no; learn to negotiate in order to get what you want.
Moderation: cut your vices in half; eat or drink three-quarters of the bad things that you usually would for a week; meditate to practice living in silence and boredom.
Justice: be respectful to everyone; learn to see things from other people’s perspectives; gain harmony in your soul by adopting the other three virtues like how Socrates insists in The Republic.

You are what you repeatedly do. In order to change your character you must build new habits over a long period of time.

Step 3: Strive for the Golden Mean

When making decisions, use Aristotle’s Golden Mean. When making a choice, always ask yourself if it’s the balanced choice, or if it’s leaning towards being extreme.

Are you working too hard in certain areas and neglecting other ones? Are you taking enough rest? Are you training both the mind and body appropriately and not just one? Are you pointing your efforts outwards from yourself, focusing on helping and giving to others? Are you looking after your own needs, wants and wellbeing too?

Step 4: Reflect and Learn from Your Decisions

Analyze your actions and habits on a weekly basis. Critique yourself honestly under the following criteria:

Did I act in accordance with the virtues I planned to cultivate?
Where did I fail the hit the mark?
What targets do I need to change for next week?

Learning from your actions is how you build what the Greeks called phronesis, or practical wisdom.

In the fundamental analysis, thought without action is pointless.

Step 5: Focus on Long-Term Fulfillment, Not Instant Gratification

“One swallow does not make a spring, nor does one day…one day or a short time does not make someone blessed and happy either” – Aristotle

One day of good behaviour doesn’t make you a saint. A virtuous life cannot be obtained in a day. Short-term gratification is shallow if it doesn’t work towards some ultimate, meaningful end. Meaning will keep you sustained even when the tides are high and your suffering is overwhelming.

Your suffering will not be justified by the happy moments, but the meaningful ones.

The Call To Action

“There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.” – Ernest Hemingway

Read The Nicomachean Ethics and pay careful attention to Aristotle’s virtue ethics. Study them all carefully and get the general concepts grasped firmly. Pick one virtue that you’d like to cultivate. Implement some micro-habits into your routine that are small but achievable. This will make you more likely to do them in the long run. Reflect and don’t be afraid to change things if necessary. Progress is still progress, no matter how small.

Change takes a long time. Transforming your character is hard; we can often feel as though there are lots of parts of us which cannot be changed. To change the deepest parts of your being, you need to adopt new habits. To become excellent you must be adopting habits of excellence, no matter how small they are at first.

Put a plan into place, get a vision of who you’d like to become; strive to get there with all of your might. This is a noble adventure that justifies the pain it takes to reach the final destination. All things that are worthwhile are hard to obtain and harder to keep.

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